As the first cool evenings in over four months descended upon the subtropics I call home, and the weariness of the long summer began to lift, a box of casareccia I had sitting in the pantry caught my eye. I had never actually used that cut of pasta before, but came across a De Cecco brand box in one of those "surplus" stores. In my opinion, De Cecco pastas are the premier brand of dried pasta, and always snag as much as I can when I find it on special. Anyway, the box had been calling to me from the pantry, and with the slightly cooler weather, I decided it was time to put it to use. Casareccia is Sicilian in origin, and is a twisted, tube shaped pasta, which I thought would lend itself to a brothy type sauce. So off to the market I headed, armed only with a vague idea of what I wanted to make.

On the drive to the market, I started thinking sausage, but wasn't in the mood to drive to a proper Italian market for it, so I knew immediately I was going to be taking a risk. I so rarely have been getting the urge to be creative in my cooking, I didn't want to squash the urge by a going on a long foraging run. I simply opted for our local chain grocer's "Green Wise" (for those who are familiar with Publix) spicy Italian (as it turned out, they were quite flavorful and sufficient for this dish). These were the large links, not small rope. Either way, I knew I was going to be cutting them into smaller chunks raw, and building the sauce from there. A note to vegetarians – this dish would we equally good without the sausage, or substituted with a commercial vegetarian sausage product like the Boca™ brand Italian sausages.

My next instinct was rapini, but alas none to be had in the produce section. I did a quick walk through, and nothing really jumped out. For a brief moment I had some broccoli flowerets in my basket, but quickly returned them. I often enjoy beans with my pasta, and decided to grab a can of cannellini beans. Knowing I didn't have any broths/stocks to speak of, I opted for a box of Swanson's organic vegetable broth. I knew I could build a lot of flavor with the sausage, and didn't want to over power the dish with chicken broth or worse, beef. (This proved to be a great decision.) I then headed back to the produce section to round out the ingredients so I could head home and cook.

I still wanted something green, but still nothing was jumping out at me, until I saw a bag of organic baby arugula. A nice big vine ripe tomato seemed to be perfect final touch. By this point, the dish had materialized in my head, so a quick mental inventory of what I knew I had at home (sweet onion, butter, and pecorino cheese), I knew I was ready to start cooking.

I'm sure I've written about it before, but I always like to put my pasta water on before i start the rest of the dish. This accomplishes two things. First, if I have any vegetables to blanch, I can use the water for both. Nothing will hurt cooking pasta in some water that's had a few green vegetables in it first. Second, this way, you're not having to wait around, or precook the pasta. In this instance, I wanted to peel and seed the tomato before using it. Certainly one could use can tomato for this, but I didn't want a lot of tomato, and there's nothing like fresh tomato. So I went ahead and cored the tomato, and scored the bottom so when the water came to a boil, I'd be ready.

As I mentioned, I wanted to cook the sausage from a raw state to build a base for the sauce. I wasn't looking for bulk sausage, rather, manageable, almost bite sized (after cooking) pieces. So I heated my trusty enamel coated cast iron dutch oven over medium heat with about a tablespoon of olive oil (just enough to help get the sausage started, there's enough fat to render out to provide the rest). I also julienned about a quarter of a large sweet onion and minced 3 cloves of garlic while the pan was heating.

I began to brown the sausage first, and as it began to brown, added the onions. I wanted a little caramelization on the onions, but not too much, thus I didn't add them at the beginning. As the onions and sausage browned, I added the garlic. Again, the same principle, I didn't want to brown the garlic, but didn't want it raw either.

At this point, I turned the heat up a bit, and deglazed the pan with about one and a half cups of the vegetable broth. If any bits of the sausage or onion are "stuck" to the bottom of the pan, gently scrap them with a wooden spoon to loosen. This really is where the foundation of the flavor comes from. Reduce the heat to low, add the can of cannellini beans, and by now the the pasta water should be at a boil, and you can put the tomato in.

If you've never peeled and seeded a tomato before, you are basically blanching the tomato until you see the skin begin to lift away from the flesh. Remove the tomato with a slotted spoon, allow to cool a bit, and then you should be able to easily peel away the skin. Cut the tomato in half around it's equator, and gently squeeze the seeds out. If you were doing a lot of tomatoes for a fresh sauce, or gazapacho for instance, you might squeeze the seeds out over a strainer and reserve the liquid to add back into your dish. In this instance, I only wanted to concasse (the "flesh"). Rough chop the tomato and add it to the sauce.

Add roughly two cups (or in my case, two big handfuls) of the baby arugula, again, not to early in the cooking process, as you don't want to cook it to mush, just wilt it. To give the sauce a nice rich, velvety consistency, I finished it with a big pat of whole butter and a couple tablespoons of grated pecorino cheese. Adjusted the seasoning (a pinch of salt, a few twists of fresh cracked pepper and a pinch of oregano was all it needed for me), and tossed with the cooked and drained pasta.

Again, the goal is a bit of a brothy sauce, so bear in mind that pasta will continue to absorb liquid, so if you aren't planning to serve this immediately, you might want to hold off on tossing it until just before serving. You can always warm the pasta in the sauce if necessary, among other techniques, all of which have their proponents and detractors.

Some freshly grated romano, some crusty bread if you so desire, and a glass of red table wine would make a perfect meal, perhaps rounded out with a simple garden salad.